The Original reason why you couldn't fire while cloaked

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2003-01-30 01:44am

I was thinking the other day. What exactly would prevent a cloaked ship from firing? Clearly they could still send and recieve signals or else they would be blind.

Watching STIII It seems to me that the REAL reason they couldn't fire while cloaked was because of the massive power consumption that the cloak required. When you see the Bird of Prey sneaking up on the Enterprise, the Klingon captain orders them to be ready to "Transwer power to weapons" which indicates to me, that they needed the energy that was being used by the cloak in order to attack.

Ofcourse this was latter changed to be some inherent property of cloaking that for some reason you couldn't fire weapons. Ofcourse alot of things changed... since I believe originally the BoP was supposed to be a Romulan design and the ship in STIII was actually stolen by the Klingons from the Romulans. Its decoration with the bird on it would seem to confirm this since we never saw Klingons decorate their ships in this fashion.

generator_g1 · Post by **generator_g1** » 2003-01-30 01:51am

If they fired, the visual image alone can give their enemy a rough estimate of their position and react accordingly...

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-01-30 04:26am

In point of fact, the energy limitation traces all the way back to "Balance Of Terror". When the Warbird commander decides to launch his killer attack on the Enterprise, he orders all energy transferred to weapons. The power drain of the cloaking system was remarked upon by one of his junior officers early in the chase and factors into the commander's decisionmaking as he approaches the Neutral Zone. TSFS was consistent with this limitation, when Kruge similarly orders his officers to prepare to transfer all energy to weapons as he makes his approach upon the Enterprise at Genesis and appears to have been the operative limitation on cloaked ships using weapons in TNG, until the Scimitar in the recent movie.

Interestingly, BoT was the only episode which suggests the one weakness of a cloaking system; interference with the cloaked vessel's own sensors. Furthermore, in the episode, the Enterprise tracks the Warbird with passive "motion sensors". This is subsequently ignored in future productions, especially from TNG-onward.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2003-01-30 06:22am

Inadvertently betraying one's own position by firing is self-evidently not an overly great concern, as General Chang had no difficulty eluding the Enterprise-A and the Excelsior in The Undiscovered Country, despite revealing his position each time his Bird of Prey fired.

The fact that the ship's location is briefly revealed is not an especially difficult obstacle to overcome, provided that the captain decides not to manoeuvre like a mentally retarded whale stranded in the tundra.

Publius

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2003-01-30 11:17am

Yea, if they want to remain completely unseen you don't fire the weapons. It was never my thought that they would remain completely undetected if they fired a weapon, hell you could just trace the energy beam back to its source and find it.

But as it stands now, they have to de-cloak which means that little shimery effect for 7 seconds during which time they are completely open to attack, as opposed to the 1-2 seconds it takes to fire and then maneuver.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2003-01-30 11:59am

In the Star trek ship game they had from FASA tht was one of the main reasons you really didnt fire the cloak took so much power

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-01-30 01:10pm

I always wondered just how much energy does it take to fire a photon torpedp? At most you have to supply power to the launcher and then the torpedo does the rest. So if power drain is the only problem to overcome when firing weapons while cloaked it seems to me this should be relatively easy to fix. Obviously this isn't really the only problem but that is the problem they push in the movies/shows.

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-01-30 03:07pm

You have also to supply the antimatter to the torpedo, and that takes power, specially if both are far appart.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2003-01-30 10:53pm

*coughbullshitcough*

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-01-31 06:40am

Admiral_K wrote:*coughbullshitcough*

Excuse me?

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2003-01-31 10:27am

IIRC, the original concept is that the cloak isn't true invisibility but essentially a holographic image of space (across a wide range of EM frequencies) projected around the ship. There is inevitably an 'edge blurring' in between the edge of the hologram and the true star field. Most modern cloaks minimise this turbulance (which you can see during most VFX sequences just after the completion of the cloaking process). However, it should still be visible using high enough resolution starfield sensors. TSfS clearly shows that tapping off power for any other purpose (communications or sensors) causes the hologram to glitch slightly, causing a high-level blurring detectable by the naked eye.

BoT seems to indicate that this is only accurate enough to give you a basic rough bearing to the target. The other starship must use some manner of 'flak' weapon (either time-fused torpedoes or some manner of phaser 'flak mode', depending on who you ask).

The 'tachyon grid' used by the Federation task force in 'Redemption' seems to be basically a 'tripwire' system. Any attempt to cross the blocade line would break one of the tachyon beams, immediately indicating that a cloaked ship is attempting to cross the line.

Trivia note: The term "DeBroglie Turbulence" used in licensed novels and graphic novels to describe the edge blurring effect.

Sektor31 · Post by **Sektor31** » 2003-01-31 11:52am

I wonder why they didn't think of dedicating a reactor to cloak and another reactor to weapons.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-01-31 01:24pm

Sektor31 wrote:I wonder why they didn't think of dedicating a reactor to cloak and another reactor to weapons.

Yes, that's somewhat of a mystery. After over 1000 years of that problem, the Romulans must look somewhat stupid for not getting that idea.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-31 01:59pm

Simon H.Johansen wrote:
Sektor31 wrote:I wonder why they didn't think of dedicating a reactor to cloak and another reactor to weapons.
Yes, that's somewhat of a mystery. After over 1000 years of that problem, the Romulans must look somewhat stupid for not getting that idea.

More like 200 years, and why not put an extra reactor in to have two sets of shields and maybe another for more weapons and another for even more shields etc etc.

Admiral_K · Post by **Admiral_K** » 2003-01-31 05:22pm

Warspite wrote:
Admiral_K wrote:*coughbullshitcough*
Excuse me?

I said *coughbullshitcough*

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-01-31 08:12pm

If a cloaked ship is still solid, thenwhy not use Radar? Primitive as it may be wouldnt the Radar waves detect the still solid warbird without needing to rely on technobabble radiation?

The one Bird of Prey that did fire while cloaked (st6) didn't seem to be significantly altered, and it was defeated by two federation ships that caught on to the idea.

Or, the ships software and browser isn't up to multitasking

Zaku-chan · Post by **Zaku-chan** » 2003-01-31 09:49pm

TheDarkling wrote:
Simon H.Johansen wrote:
Sektor31 wrote:I wonder why they didn't think of dedicating a reactor to cloak and another reactor to weapons.
Yes, that's somewhat of a mystery. After over 1000 years of that problem, the Romulans must look somewhat stupid for not getting that idea.
More like 200 years, and why not put an extra reactor in to have two sets of shields and maybe another for more weapons and another for even more shields etc etc.

That takes up room, though, and the bigger this ship, the more energy you might need to cloak it.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2003-01-31 09:54pm

Zaku-chan wrote:That takes up room, though, and the bigger this ship, the more energy you might need to cloak it.

Romulan ships, though, seem to be designed specifically not to use this potential. They have large surface areas, and very large undeveloped sections of the ship. Look at the D'Derix, which could easily have another generator installed in its vast, cavernous center line. Additionally, torpedoes should not take substantial power to operate, and one would think they should be able to fire through the cloak (as they did in ST:VI).

Zaku-chan · Post by **Zaku-chan** » 2003-01-31 09:56pm

Master of Ossus wrote:Romulan ships, though, seem to be designed specifically not to use this potential. They have large surface areas, and very large undeveloped sections of the ship. Look at the D'Derix, which could easily have another generator installed in its vast, cavernous center line. Additionally, torpedoes should not take substantial power to operate, and one would think they should be able to fire through the cloak (as they did in ST:VI).

*shrug* I actually agree with you. Torps shouldn't take up a lot of energy, but for some reason, they seem to.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2003-01-31 10:41pm

If energy was the only concern, then cloaked vessels should be unable to enter warp, which requires more energy than weapons do (weapons may be fired on back-up power, but it takes main power to enter warp). Maybie your typical cloak is disturbed by weapon discharges, or as BenRG said, even by re-routing power.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-01-31 11:31pm

Couldn't a rek ship use one of the following non technobabble methods to detect a cloaked ship?

1) RADAR?

2) A variation of torpedo with a warhead that could cover an area using some sort of cheap micro broadcasting units? It might not be 100% effective but assuming you designed a small transmitter that would send a signal back to the ship noting its direction and current course along with some rudimentary scanning equipment. If one of them happens to hit a cloaked ship in the area it would attach to the hull or ping off of it or be destroyed. The ship using the transmitter would get some form of message or signal noting that something odd is going on, the other transmitters would simply continue to travel into space uness somehow bloacked.

3) Improvements to a sensor system that would take into account the blotting out of stars that sould be visible from a ship, especially the forward viewscreen. It shouldn't take an idiot to be sitting in front of a viewscreen and notice that a few dozen tiny lights just went out and theres a distinctive pattern in the shape of a ship.

4) All that power being used there has to be somethings its given off, either in the form of nergy being given off, or something that the uber-necessary cooling system would be giving off.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-02-01 03:33am

IIRC rader won't work in space, the sound waves need a mediium to travel across.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-02-01 03:35am

Gandalf wrote:IIRC rader won't work in space, the sound waves need a mediium to travel across.

You're thinking of sonar, not radar. The only problem with radar is that it travels at c.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2003-02-01 10:51am

Furthermore standard shields can jam radars ( seen in many eps when they time-travel in Earth's past ), and so does cloaking device ( STIV ).

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-02-02 01:59am

How does it "jam" a radar? Stealth aricraft today use special paints and designs to make themselves invisible they don simply "jam" the wave. Its not like a radar wave can pass through a cloaked ship just because you couldn't see it.

If not radar then what about Infra red? If the other ship is giving off heat then wouldn't one of those scans pick it up Or maybe even Geordi's damn visor.

"Sir we aren't sure but there might be a cloaked ship out there "

"Geordi get your ass up here"

"Hey Cap'n whats shaking, awwww damn theres like 30 Warbirds out there! Im a get my as to the shuttlebay."

"Agreed Mr. LaForge, let us all 'get our ass to the shuttlebay' "

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The Original reason why you couldn't fire while cloaked

The Original reason why you couldn't fire while cloaked

Passive anti-cloak measures